Researchers have discovered a way to generate new human neurons from pericyte cells, providing a possible new approach to cell-based therapy of neurodegenerative diseases, said Benedikt Berninger of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
“The ultimate goal is to induce such conversion within the brain itself to provide a novel strategy for repairing the injured or diseased brain.”
Pericytes keep the blood-brain barrier intact and participate in… read more
Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a new technique with the potential to kill off hospital superbugs like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, C. difficile and MRSA.
The novel method uses a cold plasma jet to rapidly penetrate dense bacterial structures known as biofilms that bind bacteria together and make them resistant to conventional chemical approaches. The new approach developed by scientists in the School of Mathematics and Physics and… read more
As part of ongoing research to help prevent and mitigate disruptions to computer networks on the Internet, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in California have turned their attention to smartphones and other hand-held computing devices.
Sandia cyber researchers linked together 300,000 virtual hand-held computing devices running the Android operating system so they could study large networks of smartphones and find ways to make them more reliable and… read more
The field of “artificial general intelligence” or AGI has made no progress whatever during the entire six decades of its existence, says Oxford University physicist David Deutsch in this abridged version of an essay in aeon magazine. — Ed.
It is uncontroversial that the human brain has capabilities that are, in some respects, far superior to those of all other known objects in the cosmos. It is the… read more
Whatever kind of reality you think you’re living in, you’re probably wrong. The universe is a computer, and everything that goes on in it can be explained in terms of information processing, speculates New Scientist in a special issue on What is reality?
“Quantum physics is almost phrased in terms of information processing,” says Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. “It’s suggestive that you will… read more
Modulating immune response to injury could accelerate the regeneration of severed peripheral nerves, a new Georgia Tech study in an animal model has found. By altering activity of the macrophage cells that respond to injuries, researchers dramatically increased the rate at which nerve processes regrew.
Influencing the macrophages immediately after injury may affect the whole cascade of biochemical events that occurs after nerve damage, potentially eliminating… read more
Most of the specific genes long thought to be linked to intelligence probably have no bearing on one’s IQ, and new study by psychological scientist Christopher Chabris of Union College has revealed.
Chabris and David Laibson, a Harvard economist, led an international team of researchers that analyzed a dozen genes using large data sets that included both intelligence testing and genetic data.
In nearly every case, the researchers found… read more
Engineers at the University of Texas at Dallas have used advanced techniques to make the material graphene small enough to read DNA by shrinking the size of a graphene pore to less than one nanometer — opening the possibility of using graphene as a low-cost tool to sequence DNA.
“Sequencing DNA at a very cheap cost would enable scientists and doctors to better predict and diagnose disease,… read more
Rice University researchers led by chemist James Tour have just written a paper in the journal Nature Communications that describes transparent, non-volatile, heat- and radiation-resistant memory chips created in Tour’s lab from silicon oxide sandwiched between electrodes of graphene, the single-atom-thick form of carbon.
More than four years ago, they discovered it was possible to make bits of computer memory from silicon and carbon, but make them much smaller and perhaps better than anything… read more
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) engineers have created a handheld scanner to enable primary care physicians to image conmon sites, such as bacterial colonies in the middle ear or the thickness and health of patients’ retinas.
In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians haven’t commonly had access to the same technology — until now.… read more
A new way to prepare biaryls — compounds that are essential building blocks in the creation of drugs and many modern materials such as LEDs — using gold as a catalyst is described by University of Bristol researchers in Science.
Gold catalysis is easier, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than current methods that use palladium as a catalyst.
Biaryls, compounds containing two directly connected benzene… read more
A new Mayo Clinic study confirms the use of smartphones medical images to evaluate stroke patients in remote locations through telemedicine.
“Essentially what this means is that telemedicine can fit in our pockets,” says Bart Demaerschalk, M.D., professor of Neurology, and medical director of Mayo Clinic Telestroke.
“For patients this means access to expertise in a timely fashion when they need it… read more
Most of the ordinary matter in the universe — the stuff that makes up all the atoms, stars, and galaxies astronomers can see — is invisible, either sprinkled throughout intergalactic space in tenuous forms that emit and absorb little light or else swaddled inside galaxies in murky clouds of dust and gas, Joel R. Primack writes in IEEE Spectrum.
When astronomers look out into the night… read more
3Gear Systems has announced a software development kit for adding gestures to applications, using your entire hand (fingers, thumbs, wrists and all) for user interaction.
“This is especially useful when you’re doing something 3D, say assembling 3D parts in Computer Aided Design (CAD), flying through a medical 3D MRI scan, or playing 3D games.
“With the rise of 3D printing and the Maker community, we’re especially interested… read more
A technique that uses acoustic waves to sort cells on a chip may create miniature medical analytic devices.
The device uses two beams of standing surface acoustic waves (SSAW) to act as acoustic tweezers to sort a continuous flow of cells on a dime-sized chip, said Tony Jun Huang, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics, Penn State.
By changing the frequency of the acoustic… read more